UTC: The Collected Illustrations

This page allows you to explore the illustrations from eighteen different
American editions of Stowe's novel, published between 1852 and 1929. The editions are
identified on the chart below simply by publication date, but if you're curious
about a specific edition check
THE KEY. It's
interesting to see which chapters drew the most illustrations, which the least, and how
the patterns of re-presentation changed over time. Most and least, by the way, are right next to each other --
Chapter 20 is "Topsy"; Chapter 21 is "Kentuck."

Many of these illustrations were drawn by British artists, and then re-printed in
American editions of the novel. "1888" would more accurately be 1853: the 105
illustrations published in Houghton Mifflin's "New" edition of 1888 were taken, without
acknowledgment, from one of the 1853 British pirated editions of the novel; because the
Houghton Mifflin edition, however, was both an authorized one and widely distributed in the
U.S., it makes sense to identify it by the later date in this archive. On the other hand,
at least two 20th century American reprintings of Uncle Tom's Cabin combined illustrations
and paintings done by British artists in 1853 and 1904; because the American reprintings were
small editions, it makes sense to identify these pictures by their date and place of origin:
i.e. as 1853Br and 1904Br. Altogether there are over 600 illustrations accessible here. Not included,
though, are illustrations of characters or scenes that don't appear in Stowe's text,
nor any of the images from the 19 illustrated children's versions of Uncle Tom's
Cabin (you can see those at UTC
AS CHILDREN'S BOOK.